


Two is a Crowd

by Anxiety_Pickle



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Genin Era, Madara did not agree to this, Pre-Canon, Team Dynamics, Uchiha Sasuke Needs a Hug, ghost hashirama decides to interfere but he accidentally gets stuck with Sasuke instead of Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anxiety_Pickle/pseuds/Anxiety_Pickle
Summary: The med-nin insist that the ghost at his bedside is a hallucination - not an uncommon consequence of genjutsu. The ghost that calls itself Hashirama begs to differ.Naruto's apartment is haunted by a not-so-friendly ghost. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he'd stick around for more than five minutes at a time.Hashirama decides that Naruto and Sasuke could use a little help. There may have been a bit of a mix up, but Hashirama is determined to make the best of the situation, if only Madara would cooperate.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Senju Hashirama & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Madara & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 215
Kudos: 554





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing way too many stories right now but this has been sitting for awhile so why not.

Sasuke can pinpoint the exact moment that the ghost that calls himself Hashirama started following him around. It was the morning after the massacre - the time itself eludes him - that the glorified flashlight forcefully inserted himself into his life with a boisterous hello that scared him so bad he screamed. The med nin that rushed to his aid chalked it up to auditory hallucinations, not an uncommon symptom of genjutsu torture similar to what he experienced in Tsukuyomi, that would fade after due time.

Well, it’s been a month, and Sasuke’s beginning to worry that he’s _never_ going away. 

He tries not to interact with him too much. Of course, that only does so much, considering he can't go too far without the stupid ghost trailing after him.

The ghost hovering over his couch staring at the potted plant on the counter as if he could make it bloom through willpower alone doesn’t bear much resemblance to the first Hokage, that he can see. The face carved into the mountains looks much different than this idiot, and he’s certainly not what he would expect out of someone with that title of prestige, but apparently ghosts actually are real and the bonds of death can be ascended, so what does he know?

Sasuke scowls. “What are you _doing?”_

Hashirama turns, positively delighted. “That’s the longest sentence you’ve said since I got here!”

He crosses his arms. Hashirama sighs dramatically. 

“I used to be able to use this thing called Mokuton.” He touches the pads of his fingers and thumbs together. “Like this! I could control wood. Does that jutsu still exist?”

He shrugs, pushing himself farther into the edge of the sofa. If nothing else, he hardly ever stops talking, which makes the house seem a little less big and empty. Hashirama vaults himself over the side of the couch in a very undignified manner, as if he could sit on it and not just hover over it. Sasuke balances his chin on his knees. 

“Why are you here?”

“Well, that’s a pretty loaded question-”

Heat rushes to his face, and he doesn’t know why. _“Here.”_ He hisses. “In my house!”

No one else is supposed to be inside the Uchiha district. Definitely not… whatever he’s supposed to be. His Auntie used to say that there were differences between ghosts and spirits and whatever else, but Hashirama doesn’t seem like any of those.

“Oh. Well, I can’t go anywhere else. I’m stuck with you.”

_“Why?”_

“Well…” He brings a hand to the nape of his neck. “It could be a few different things. You see, after the… er, _incident,”_ Sasuke stiffens, “I decided you could probably use some help. Except someone else was supposed to be with you, and I was supposed to go to someone else. Something must’ve gotten messed up and… here I am!”

“Help?” Sasuke glares. “I don’t need help.”

“Oh, don’t say that. We all need help sometimes. You shouldn’t be living here all alone anyways.”

“I’m _fine.”_ He snaps.

“Sure.” He agrees easily, and clearly not very convinced. “Wanna try something cool?”

He only gets a scowl in return. Hashirama takes this as permission. “Shinobi can walk up trees and on water and anywhere else they need to if they can regulate their chakra.”

Sasuke’s frown eases a bit. 

“I would show you, but uh…” He gestures to himself. “I can float now, and technically speaking I don’t really have chakra right now. But I promise it’ll be fun!”

It is not, in fact, fun.

He manages the first few steps fine before falling backwards. Hashirama squeaks (also very undignified and not at all Hokage-like) and reaches out to catch him before he remembers he’s not tangible anymore. He lands on his feet, and he sighs in relief. 

“I think that’s enough for the day.” His voice is strained, but Sasuke pays it no heed. He stares back up at the tree, determination creasing his brow.

“Oh.” Hashirama’s voice is faint. “Now I know who you remind me of.”

Sasuke spends the rest of the night _determined_ to climb the tree. It’s not like he has to be back in school until the next week, so it doesn’t matter if he stays up all night. Even if it takes all of his energy and the rest of his dignity. 

“Sasuke.” Hashirama implores. “Please go back inside.”

Sasuke, perched on a low cradle of branches, ignores him.

It takes until the sun comes back up, and Sasuke, snagged with bramble and covered in dirt, grins for the first time in a month from the top of the tree. 

“I think,” Hashirama says succinctly. “I may have just made a terrible mistake.”

Naruto is seven and a half when he’s woken at approximately three in the morning by a man with red eyes floating over his kitchen table. He doesn’t know how to describe the man as anything other than ‘if Sasuke had never had a haircut in his entire life’, except more aggressive. His clothes are straight out of one of the history textbooks Iruka tries to get him to read when he comes around.

_“Hashirama,”_ The man seethes, bathed in an angry purple glow. “I’m going to _murder you.”_ He stares down at his gloved, semi-translucent hands. “Again.”

Naruto, frozen on his bed with his covers bunched around his waist, only blinks.

“Who the hell are you?”

He doesn’t think to ask more logical questions such as _what are you?_ Or, _how did you get in here?_ Or maybe even _why are you floating over my table?_

The man turns on him with a snarl. His heel passes through the empty cereal box on the table.

Naruto squeaks in terror. That is a _ghost._ There is a _ghost_ in his kitchen and it’s probably going to murder him. He’s seen the stories. Is his apartment haunted? Did he anger some spirit? Was someone mysteriously killed here thirty years ago that the contractor failed to mention and he has to wait in terrified suspense as the angry ghost picks off the other members of the cast?

The scowl turns into a sneer, and he disappears as if he were never there at all.

Well. Naruto isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do about _that,_ so he pulls his blankets up to his chin and stares at the shadowy room until it’s time to go to school.

By the next week he’s mostly convinced himself that it was a dream. He yells at Iruka-Sensei for a good twenty minutes about ghosts and a haunted apartment and he’s reminded that it was probably just a nightmare, and that makes sense, because ghosts aren’t real and people don’t come back from the dead. By two weeks, Sasuke is back in class and even quieter than usual, and he’s forgotten about the situation entirely.

Until the same ghost shows up again a month later, that is. 

“What do you want?” Naruto shrieks, perched on the counter, a frying pan in his hands as if that would do any good against a ghost. “Was this your apartment? Am I intruding? I’m sorry! Please don’t eat me!”

The ghost just looks… confused by that. 

“The fuck are you talking about?” He growls. He looks over the kitchen again, an irritated furrow between his brows, and gnashes his teeth together. He spares no more consideration before disappearing again. Naruto doesn’t understand ghost physics (or physics in general, really), but his ghost just kinda seems like an asshole.

He cautiously lowers the pan and leaps to the floor with a frown.

The next day, he tugs his jacket on, and eats his cereal on the floor. He doesn't trust that table. 

A glance at the clock tells him that he's running late, so he unceremoniously dumps the bowl in the sink and makes for the door.

At the academy, a cluster of children kick a ball around near the pile of junk lovingly referred to as the playground. Naruto slips through the door before Iruka can give him another tardy. Said teacher is combing through a pile of paperwork at his desk, nursing a mug of coffee. A pawprint is painted on its ceramic surface. 

"Morning, Naruto." He smiles.

"Morning, Iruka-sensei." He pauses, and rolls back on his heels. "Hey, do you know where I can find an exorcist?"

He chokes on his coffee.


	2. Chapter 2

“Coffee again?” Hashirama stares disdainfully, unsubtly, at the pot of coffee brewing on the countertop. Sasuke doesn’t bother turning around to glare at him. He’s been avoiding the main issue for the last month and a half: he doesn’t _really_ know how to cook. He knows… some of the basics, the things Mom could teach in her free time, but it takes too long, and he distrusts the stove. “You should try something healthier.”

“What do you know about healthy food.” He spitefully presses the button with a little more force than strictly necessary. “You’re _dead.”_

Hashirama doesn’t take offense to this. “Here, I’ll show you how to make something.”

Hashirama, as it turns out, is not a prolific cook.

Sasuke stares at what seems like too much fire. “...I think it’s burning.”

Hashirama stares at it. “No, that’s the right amount of fire.”

As if _that’s_ supposed to make him feel better. 

“Okay.” He says, while it roars over the stove. “That might be too much fire.”

He quickly throws the pot in the sink and turns the water on while smoke fills the kitchen. 

“I hate you.” He says, and makes for the door. Now he’s going to be late. 

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t say that. Hate is a strong word.”

“That’s why I said it.”

Hashirama looks like a kicked puppy.

“No talking when I’m at school.” He glares over his shoulder as they approach the gate. “If they see me talking to myself they’re gonna think I’m more crazy than they already do.”

“They don’t think you’re crazy.”

“They _do.”_ He hisses. “They’re all… watching me. All the time.”

Hashirama purses his lips. “Well, I’m sure it’s well-intentioned.”

“It doesn’t matter _what_ it is-”

A girl passing by gives him an odd look.

_“Look what you did.”_

“It’s not my fault! You just have to be more careful-! Look, there’s Naruto!”

“Why would I care about him?” He scoffs, glaring across the playground to see Naruto running to catch the first bell. He’s been late every other day this week, and Iruka had warned, loud enough that Sasuke could hear, that if he was late one more time he’d have detention for the next month. Where he gets his patience from, Sasuke will never know. “He’s just a loser.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“Shut up. I’m going to class now.”

_“Sasuke-”_

Class is exponentially more difficult with Hashirama hanging over his shoulder. Not that that makes it difficult by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s certainly annoying. Iruka-sensei calls him out twice for being distracted. They’re reading from a textbook now and Hashirama will occasionally chime in to say, “That’s not right.” Or “Where did they get that from?”

Eventually, the sanctuary of lunch rolls around, and he’s the first one out of the classroom.

He isolates himself at the furthest end of the pavement, his back to the interlocking chain link fence. 

Hashirama is looking at the rooftops. 

“What now?” He scowls. 

“Oh, nothing, nothing.”

He follows his gaze to see an ANBU agent, hidden expertly just behind the overhang of the roof. The dark, shadowed eyes of the mask stare back at him, unrelenting and emotionless. 

(Kind of like Itachi-)

“You should learn to sense chakra signatures next.” Hashirama offers. “That I can be more helpful teaching. It is a little advanced for you, though.”

He watches the ANBU agent disappear around the corner, and bites down on a smile. “Try me.”

“Sasuke, I do not condone skipping class.” 

He crouches on the branch, staring down through the foliage. “If they wanted me to stay they should’ve noticed that I was gone. I don’t need to be there - you said it yourself, most of what they teach isn’t even _right.”_

Not to mention it wasn’t practical. The kunoichi were separated and taught about flower arrangement, for all things, which had very little application in the field. On specific long-term infiltration missions, maybe it would be of use, but to teach that generally? It was ridiculous and a waste of time, and no self-respecting person should be participating. 

Hashirama sighs. “I have to admit, the practical skills they teach are lacking, but for your age group-”

“They can’t teach us nothing and then sicc us on some Jonin. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the Academy entirely?”

“It’s probably to keep you out of the field.” He points out.

“Bullshit.” He snaps. Mom would kill him if she ever heard him say that, but, well-

They’re all dead. So what does it matter?

Itachi had been eleven when he was made ANBU. If wartime superseded the purpose of the Academy, then it still undermined its existence.

“They send kids to war all the time.” He scowls. “So it’s useless. They should just teach us the useful stuff.”

Hashirama stills. “They _what?”_

Sasuke huffs impatiently. “You heard me. You said you were gonna teach me.”

“I didn’t tell you to _skip school.”_

“I’m already here. Will you teach me or not?”

Hashirama sighs. “Okay, but no more skipping school.”

“I won’t.” He lies. What was he gonna do? Haunt him? A little late for that.

“The ANBU agent is behind you.” He says. “It’s easier to sense things if you can see them first, but they’re hidden well. You should start with something easier first. Try… try those people over there.”

Sasuke hones in on the group of civilians lounging at the side of the street, a group of women perusing the street vendor’s shops with baskets balanced on their hips. 

“Now - extend your chakra, but not too much, you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

He closes his eyes and tries to relax, to still.

“They should feel warm. If it doesn’t, well, that can be a symptom of chakra sickness, or another illness.”

He spends the next few hours detailing the movement of several people through the street. After a few hours of this, once he can track their movement, Hashirama asks him to identify their chakra nature, and that throws him for a loop.

“Their what?”

Hashirama stares at him for a minute. “....oh. You don’t know? Okay, no, that’s fine, perfectly fine. I can teach you about that… later. The ANBU agent is coming back.”

Sasuke glares over his shoulder and drops down into the grass, stretching his cramped muscles. He doesn’t see anyone. He doesn’t feel anyone either, for that matter. 

“Come on, it’s getting late, you should be getting home.” Hashirama prompts, herding him down the street like a sheep.

How he wishes anyone else could see him and confirm that he isn’t, in fact, insane.

If Hashirama is a product of his subconscious and not an actual ghost, then his mind has an awful sense of humor.

Iruka-sensei definitely thinks he’s insane.

Naruto glares across the table at the ghost, who still hasn’t introduced himself, who is still floating on top of his table like he owns it.

He had decided to humor him, by agreeing that exorcists did indeed purge ghosts from places, but had then explained to him that it was a product of his imagination. Naruto feels like products of his imagination shouldn’t wake him up at two in the morning screaming on his kitchen table.

Naruto squints up at him. Neither of them have acknowledged each other, and he seems to want to keep it that way.

Well, too bad.

“You look like Sasuke.” He declares. “Are you two, like, related?”

He realizes a beat too late that Sasuke’s entire clan is dead, which might imply that this man was among the people who were killed, and that maybe he won’t take too kindly to being reminded of his murder, even though he seems to be perfectly aware of the fact that he’s dead-

“Uh - uh - sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to - um - I know all of you guys are… kinda dead-”

No, no, he is not helping to diffuse this situation at _all._ The man’s eyes bleed red and he squeaks, nearly tipping back in his chair in his attempt to escape.

“What are you talking about, boy?”

Did he… not remember being killed? Or was he a really old ghost? But why only show up now?

“I don’t know! I mean, the clan is gone! And you look like Sasuke so I just thought- maybe you were an Uchiha too…?”

The man glares at him. “What about the Uchiha clan?”

“So you are part of it?”

He only glares. 

“Okay, okay! Yeah, they… sorta don’t exist anymore. There’s only one of ‘em left and he’s an asshole.”

He narrows his eyes, biting back a snarl as he straightens.

“I told him.” He growls. “I _told_ him what would happen.”

Naruto rocks back on his chair. “So, um, who are you?”

His mouth curls into a sneer. “Madara Uchiha.”

And then he’s gone. Again. 

Naruto sighs, and crosses out 'attempt number 6 at conversation' on his napkin. There goes that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry that took a hot minute to update. I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow which is why I updated today. If anyone comments and I don't reply I'm not ignoring you I just don't have wifi.
> 
> Hashirama is like... supportive parent who is doing their best but like. Badly. Meanwhile Madara is like the wine aunt that teaches you about tax evasion.
> 
> Naruto finally knows Madara's name!


	3. Chapter 3

Hashirama drapes himself over the length of the couch like a sunbathing cat, the only indication that he’s floating and not actually sitting being that he doesn’t quite touch the decorative pillows his father always called frivolous - or, where they do meet, the offending body part slips _though_ the plush, which he finds somehow more disconcerting. Doesn’t that feel strange?

He turns back to decipher the strange machine that is the stove. Hashirama has since been banned from stepping foot in the kitchen (hovering in the kitchen?) because all that seems to come from his interference is _fire._

He’d claimed that he’d never actually done any of the kitchen, just occasionally been the casual onlooker, hence his unfortunate ability to burn literally anything. That doesn’t mean Sasuke is that much better, loathe as he might be to admit it, but at least he doesn’t threaten to burn his house down every time he dares to turn the burners on.

Right. Breakfast. Because coffee is apparently insufficient. 

“Sasuke!” Hashirama calls. “You’re not having coffee again, are you?”

Apparently ghosts can’t smell, because he is making coffee, and it should definitely be evident in the smell of crushed coffee grounds heavy in the air. “No.”

“You are, aren’t you? _Sasuke,_ drinking that much is _not_ healthy-!”

Sasuke pokes his head into the living room just long enough to hurl a spatula at his stupid, insufferable face. It, predictably, soars right through him and hits the desk before clattering to the ground. Hashirama stares.

“Shut up.” He growls.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You were going to.” He grumbles, and turns back into the kitchen. As far as he’s concerned, a ghost has no business giving anyone ‘health tips’. What does he know about healthy diets, he can’t cook _and_ he’s dead. Maybe that was what killed him - he tried to cook and burned his house down. Would it be in bad form to ask a ghost the circumstances of their death?

Well, probably. Auntie used to say that ghosts were created by lingering negative emotion - anger and fear in particular enticed them, and they’d often congregate where the emotional gouges in the earth were deepest. He hadn't believed her, of course, because ghosts didn’t exist.

And now there’s one in his living room. 

Oh, she would’ve laughed. 

(Would’ve, because they’re all dead. He worries sometimes that they’re still here, old spirits trapped under the floorboards and in the spots of blood under the carpets where the ANBU assigned to clean up hadn't reached).

It takes him five minutes to give up completely. He downs the coffee before Hashirama can stop him and walks out of the kitchen. 

“That was quick.” Hashirama remarks dubiously. 

“Cooking doesn’t take that long when you actually know how to do it.” He lies. He doesn’t really know anything more about it than Hashirama does. One of these days he’s going to have to figure it out, but he has to leave soon if he doesn’t want to be late. Truthfully, he’d dutifully retrieved the eggs from the fridge that Hashirama had coerced him into buying and set them on the counter next to the stove, and then stared at them for what seemed like an appropriate amount of time before putting them right back. 

How long do eggs keep before they spoil? Sasuke has no idea.

Sasuke puts to use the sensing technique Hashirama taught him. He’s been using it to track the stray cats weaving through the empty streets of the compound. Animals, as it turns out, are much more difficult to follow than people. 

“You told me you would help me train.” Sasuke says. 

_“After_ school.” He corrects. “And you have a test today.”

“They’d let me make it up.” Sasuke replies, flat.

“That’s dishonest!”

Yeah, and his brother killed his entire family. So-fucking-what?

“You founded the village, didn’t you?” He still isn’t one hundred percent sold that this isn’t some imposter pretending to be Hashiama. 

Hashirama pauses mid-rant. “Yes?”

Sasuke scowls. “So you made the Academy.”

“... yes?”

“How do I graduate early?”

He looks startled. “Why on earth would you want to do that? We made the Academy so that children wouldn’t be forced into combat!”

Sasuke huffs. “That’s stupid.” It didn’t even work. “Your stupid Academy is useless.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“During wartime they have kids graduate earlier anyway.”

“They what?” He looks horrified. “You weren’t exaggerating last time-?”

He shrugs. The thought of Itachi makes his stomach twists into knots. He doesn’t want to bring him up, doesn’t want to think about him when he had been his brother. He doesn’t really remember what age he had graduated, even. He’d been too young, but he’s sure that he’d been reminded sometime after. “My brother was my age.”

He can only use _brother_ in the context of the person who he thought Itachi was. 

Hashirama looks no less horrified. He needs to stop, because he can’t be distracting Sasuke in public. If anyone sees him talking to himself all the time everyone’s going to think he’s as crazy as Naruto.

(Actually, now that he thinks about it, becoming a social pariah doesn’t seem like such a bad option. Nobody else to worry about).

He leaves Hashirama to visibly process this information as he trudges through the arching gates and across the grass. He can feel the weight of the other student’s eyes on his back - unfortunately for him, being the last Uchiha had only added a layer of mystique, which attracted _more_ unwanted looks. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Naruto race through the gate to get inside before the first bell. He doubles over once he pushes through the main doors, and Iruka-sensei looks _supremely_ unimpressed. He then mumbles something… to himself. 

When he catches his gaze, Naruto just scowls and crosses his arms. Sasuke sneers in return and turns his head out the window, balancing his head on his palm, content to watch the clouds go by. It’s not like this place really has anything to teach him that he doesn’t already know. 

Iruka-sensei walks by row by row to place their tests on the table and gives them the rest of the hour to finish.

Sasuke is done within the first twenty minutes, and when he looks over his shoulder because of the conspicuous lack of unsolicited commentary, he finds that Hashirama isn’t there.

Shit, if he’s gone, maybe he was part of his imagination.

Well, maybe that means he’s finally rid of him for good. 

(Hashirama appears again an hour later, still shell-shocked. Sasuke is almost disappointed. Almost).

Naruto has a test to take, and whatever-his-name-is (Madara?) will not _shut the fuck up._ He’s lost track of what he’s ranting about now, quiet enough that it’s almost under his breath. He occasionally demands to be taken to the Uchiha district, which Naruto is not doing because Sasuke will think he’s crazy if he doesn’t already, and he feels that, somehow, him trespassing wouldn’t be appreciated. 

Earlier, he’d almost said that Madara’s more consistent presence (and the fact that his sleep schedule hasn’t been rudely interrupted in a while) was a good sign. Now, though, he just hangs over Naruto’s shoulder and complains. He really needs a good grade on this test, and while everyone else has blissful silence to function in, he has to deal with a long string of threads towards someone named Tobirama. 

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but he doesn’t care. 

He flicks a pencil in his general direction, which goes right through him and falls on the ground. Madara turns at him to glare viciously, a strange pattern spinning to life in his narrowed eyes. 

_“Brat.”_ He hisses.

Iruka-sensei pins him in a glare for a moment. Naruto smiles nervously.

He turns back to his paper, and he has no idea what the answers to any of these are. History is probably his worst subject. It’s not his fault the subject is boring as all hell. He tries to sit in the library and burn through the fist-sized textbooks that Iruka-sensei offers, but he always gets bored or distracted. Pranking people is a much more productive use of his time, in his own humble opinion.

If nothing else, his little assault has shut him up.

Thank whatever god was listening.

(He still doesn’t know the answers to any of the questions, though, which is decidedly not ideal).

Madara turns to survey the room. “This is the Academy? A pitiful waste. It’s no wonder you’re so pathetic.”

You can’t murder something that’s already dead, Naruto reminds himself. 

“Shh.” Naruto hisses under his breath. “I’m taking a test!”

Iruka-sensei glances up in warning. He ducks his head back to his paper.

He can almost _feel_ Madara judging him.

“What kind of questions are these?” Madara glances over his shoulder, scowling. All he seems to do is scowl. 

“Unless you want to help.” He whispers. “Be quiet.” 

He scribbles down an answer for the first one. Madara looks appalled. Slowly, he erases it. 

“The reason for the revolt was _economic disparity._ Have they taught you nothing?” 

Naruto doesn’t remember learning about that. But he also didn’t remember the test until last night. It’s the best guess he has, so he might as well take his word for it. Occasionally, he’ll but in to criticize both the questions and his answers. 

At the end of the period, he turns the test in.

(He gets a seventy five. Iruka-sensei looks like he wants to cry).

Madara, it seems, has a burning hatred of the village, for reasons Naruto isn’t quite sure of. The name Tobirama comes up often, and so does Hashirama, though that one more infrequently. They both sound familiar, but he doesn’t care to look them up.

He’s tired of Madara bossing him around. Most of the time he just ignores him, but more and more people have caught him talking furiously to himself which is not conducive for having a healthy social life. If kids avoided him before, it was nothing compared to now.

So he eventually tracks down a Shaman. Mostly to piss Madara off, because he starts yelling the moment he walks into her shop, the air thick with incense and shelves piled with strange baubles and stones and medicinal herbs said to ward off spirits. 

“Don’t you dare.” He growls.

“Hi!” Naruto rests his hands on the counter cheerfully. If looks could kill, his entire family tree would be up in flames. “Do you do exorcisms?”

Madara doesn’t show up for a few days after him. Naruto almost thinks he’s gone for good.

(He’s not. He shows up in the living room at three in the morning like the petty creature he is for the sole purpose of making him late the next morning). He keeps prompting him to talk to the 'Uchiha boy', but he seems strangely supportive of his idea to deface the stone monument of the Hokage’s faces. 

It’s three in the morning. Maybe he’s going to get a full night’s sleep. Maybe Madara has given up haunting him for some unknown crime and has finally moved onto wherever people are supposed to go when they die. Or maybe not, because the stupid ghost himself appears in the living room, without his amor this time, screaming about Hashirama.

He shoves his pillow over his head.

He’s calling the shaman back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry this took so long. I'm working on like 3 stories right now but this really shouldn't have taken this long.
> 
> -Hashirama tries his best to Dad but it's not going well, he's getting bullied by a 7yo  
> -Madara is an asshole, he's so funny  
> -Naruto is suffering  
> -Iruka is pretty sure Naruto is cheating but he has no idea how


	4. Chapter 4

Trying to play a board game with a ghost is probably the stupidest thing he’s ever tried. Sasuke doesn’t even know how to play the game, but Hashirama had excitedly asked him about the old dusty board game stored in the attic that he’s pretty sure no one has so much as designed to look at in the last thirty years. He taps a crudely carved wooden piece that might resemble a bear, if he’s being generous.

(He’s never in a generous mood. It has a stupid expression on what he’ll hesitantly refer to as a face, asymmetrical and generally unpleasant to look at. He flicks the stupid not-a-bear-shapeless-monstrosity and considers tossing it at Hashirama.

He knows it won’t stick, but it’s the principle of the thing). 

“Sasuke,” He whines. “That’s special! You can’t throw that! It’s a cultural heirloom! I bet there aren’t any more around. I can’t believe he really kept that old thing…”

Sasuke really can’t wrap his head around how someone could carve this so… wrong. Its almost kind of impressive, actually. More, that he can’t see any visible marks that would have otherwise indicated the precise work of a knife. 

“... but did he really have to throw out the fish? That was my favorite, ungrateful…”

Sasuke zones back into the one-sided conversation and belatedly remembers that Mokuton is a thing that exists, and-

“Did you make this?” 

“I did!”

He scrunches up his nose. “How did you screw up so bad?”

Hashirama stares. “I’m getting bullied by an eight year old.”

“Stop haunting me and I won’t have to.”

“Stop-! That’s not how that works!”

“Well maybe you should explain!” 

Hashirama sighs. “I’m not sure you’d… take it well.”

“I’m not taking you _haunting me_ well!”

“That’s different! Besides, you can’t get rid of me. I’m stuck here.”

Sasuke scoffs. “Then I don’t care.”

“And I’m not _haunting you._ I’m _guiding_ you. I’m…” He pauses. “Well, I suppose that makes me some sort of guardian spirit.”

“I don’t want one. I don’t _need_ one.” He glares.

“You set the kitchen on fire twice!”

“One of those times was your fault!” Sasuke chucks the not-bear piece into the flower pot. Hashirama gawks. He takes some kind of sadistic satisfaction in that.

Something clatters outside. Like the crinkling sound of a tin can under the daily trod of academy boys. Sasuke grits his teeth and gets to his feet, even when Hashirama calls out for him to wait.

The walls of the compound are high enough that Sasuke will never be tall enough to look over them. He instead uses his newfound skill that Hashirama definitely regrets teaching him to climb the wall and settle atop its ledge, looking down at the gang of boys no older than thirteen, recent academy flunkies, dropping spray cans on the ground. 

The first boy startles, eyes widening under a mop of dark, knotted hair. 

“What the _fuck.”_

“His eyes!”

He spits sparks, unwilling to commit to Katon, and that’s all it takes to make them scatter.

“They should’ve killed all of you freaks!” He yells. Sasuke does use Katon then, just a little. Not enough for anyone to link it back to him or anything. If a few newspapers in the gutter are blackened around the edges, that’s no one’s business but his.

Hashirama floats at his side, brow furrowed in one of the rare instances that he’s actually using that thing inside his head. “... are they like that often?”

“Who cares?” Sasuke grumbles. “They were always like that.”

Hashirama frowns. “... always?”

“Yeah.” He rubs the ash off the side of his mouth. That’s going to stain, probably. He doesn’t have enough experience with the washing machine to say definitively what he needs to do to prevent that, but Mom used to say that a lot. It’s why a lot of them preferred black - it was a lot harder to get ash stains. “It’s just me now, so they can get away with it.”

Hashirama doesn’t look placated by that, either. Instead, all the branches on the tree he’s standing over sharpen to deadly points simultaneously.

He leaps back like a startled cat. He blinks at the recently weaponified plant and reaches forward. “Did you-? You said you couldn’t do that anymore.”

Hashirama looks equally as surprised as he does, which isn’t any more reassuring. “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

Sasuke glares at him, turns on his heel, and marches back towards his house. He’s going to have to see if his Aunt had any more stories about spirits, because if this one just broke some ghost law he’s not aware of he’s going to kill Hashirama again.

“Hey, wait up!” Hashirama catches up to him easily, and glances back towards the wall. “... that incident notwithstanding, aren’t you going to do something about those boys?”

Sasuke shrugs. “Someone else will just replace them.”

“That’s… a terrible reason to have.”

Yeah, well. 

“Teach me how to fight and I can deal with them.”

Hashirama looks at him dubiously. “Is that what it’s going to take to incentivise you to go to school? Train you?”

“Sure.” Sasuke dumps the plate from yesterday into the sink. Mom would yell at him for almost breaking the plate, Dad would yell at him for waiting a whole day to tend to the chores. “If you don’t want me to graduate early.”

Hashirama shakes his head fervently. “Nope! None of that. If that’s what it takes, I’ll train you.”

He glances towards the tree again through the window, before drawing the curtains. It’s not like there’s anyone around to see. The district is off limits to normal civilians (and technically he wasn’t even supposed to stay here but they couldn’t get him to stay out). No one to see the very-prickly tree glaring at them from the plaza. In the interest of not being skewered, he should probably figure that out.

“How’d you make that tree… pointy?”

Hashirama shrugs. “I admit I’m… a bit at a loss. I wasn’t supposed to have the power to influence the outside world. I… have some things to fix, evidently.”

Sasuke decides that he’d rather not know. “I’m going outside.” He announces. “Don’t follow me.”

Hashirama winces. “Insofar as I can.”

Sasuke slams the door hard enough to rattle the framework.

Puddles is staring at him with stupid big black eyes, and Sasuke really needs to stop feeding them. Alley cats were common even when the district was populated. He named Puddles when he was three because it had been raining and he was three, Mom must’ve found it funny and started calling her that too, and now he has an entourage of cats that follows him around whenever he goes outside.

It’s kind of a problem.

Hashirama leans over his shoulder. “Puddles? That’s a cute name.”

Sasuke grumbles, and sets the bowl on the porch. He closes the door quickly, because if he doesn’t she might find a way to get inside, and that’s the last thing he needs.

He can now understand why his demands for a pet were never taken seriously. Sasuke can’t cook without causing a fire hazard, he doesn’t have the time or ability to take care of something else.

(Hashirama shouldn’t have pointed that out, though).

Half the alley cats still around are completely feral. Hashirama is terrified of them, but they like him well enough. 

(Sasuke thinks they can see him. It’s uncanny).

While he makes sure none of them are tearing up the mats, Hashirama stares steadfast at the potted cactus on the windowsill. Mom had liked gardening, and it showed, because on every viable surface there was a pot of something. Nothing so much as budges.

He sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “The best I can think of is to recreate the circumstances that it happened in originally, but…” He glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

Sasuke frowns back. He’s been acting weird ever since, weird for even him, which was alarming in and of itself. “What?”

It’s almost a challenge. If it is, Hashirama will definitely take it. 

“You’re okay with them treating you like that?”

“Don’t say it like that.” He busies himself with recollecting the bowls. Puddles paws at the door. Sasuke glares until she slinks back home. “They’re not worth my time.”

“I agree with the sentiment.” Hashirama agrees tentatively. “Not for the same reasons, though. They’re not worth your time because you’re not obligated to pay heed to someone who would stoop so low as to insult you for your heritage, which they don’t have any right to do.”

Sasuke is… _viscerally_ uncomfortable with this conversation.

“I’m making dinner.” He declares, turning on his heel. The attempt at deflection is laughable at best. Hashirama’s sigh is audible, but it gets him to go back to staring at the plants. Good. Maybe he’ll have some peace and quiet. 

Something cracks in the living room. Something that sounds suspiciously like ceramic. 

“What did you do.”

Hashirama smiles sheepishly at the new root that’s sprouted out of the carnations, breaking straight through the pot. Dirt trickles to the floor. “I did it again.”

Sasuke walks back to the kitchen, disgusted.

(He doesn’t actually make dinner. The recipe book is ripped at the edges, splattered with something that Sasuke hopes is just food and knows isn’t, and freezes halfway through the motions. Hashirama coerces him to the market, and he comes back with two bags of nothing but fruit. Hashirama is a bad influence).

Hashirama discovers the little tomato plant in a guarded section of wire-fence and nearly has a meltdown. Sasuke tries to hide the watering can behind his leg and fails. The next day, the leaves look marginally more healthy. The following night, Sasuke rearranges the wooden pieces on the board game and pretends Hashirama doesn’t beam when he finds them.

“So… where exactly do you go when you disappear? Hell?” Naruto looks over the edge of the calendar Iruka got him that he still hasn’t used. Something about exam dates and retests and something stupid like that. “You seem like a hell kinda guy. Is that were you escaped from?” 

Madara couldn’t manage to look more disgusted with him if he tried. Well, the feeling’s mutual, so fine. 

He can’t exactly fight a ghost, or whatever the fuck he’s supposed to be, even if he wants to. Psychological warfare hasn’t worked thus far, but watching him glare over the head of the shaman as she filled the apartment with incense was hilarious. She probably thinks he’s possessed or something, which only adds to the humor.

“You,” Madara growls, “Are a pest in dire need of extermination.”

Naruto scoffs. “You’re a ghost. What are you gonna do, huh? Fight me?”

His lip curls. “You would hardly be much of an opponent.”

Naruto rolls onto his stomach. He needs to clean his apartment. He’s vaguely aware of the trash bag at the corner of the kitchen that’s growing some kind of mold. He’s terrified to touch it. He’d much prefer Madara to whatever sentient creature is emerging from his two week old ramen cup.

“Can you fight? Can you do anything? What’s the point of you even being here?”

Madara growls. “If you think I could do something, don’t you think I would have?”

“I dunno. Maybe you’re attached to the apartment or something. You’re not, right?” He squints suspiciously. Technically, he hadn't said either way. He’s just covering all the bases. By the way Madara is glaring, Naruto concludes that he doesn’t much appreciate this line of questioning. “Right, okay, so you’re just here to haunt me for fun?”

“I assure you that this is far from _fun_ for either of us. It seems that I was… assigned to you for a specific purpose, the likes of which I can’t begin to fathom.”

It seems like there’s more to that statement, but Naruto can’t quite put his finger on it. That’s the same look he gets on the street, the same hesitance in tone that implies some deeper meaning. Naruto hates that.

“I’m going to sleep.” He declares. “Get out of my apartment.”

He does so with a growl. What a _stunning_ conversationalist.

There isn’t any food in the fridge.

Well, there’s a carton of expired milk, but he’d like to avoid a repeat of last year considering there’s a witness around. Even if he’s a ghost. 

Therefore, he has to go get food. 

Madara watches from the corner of his dark eyes as he gears up for his journey, a distinctly judgmental curve to his shoulders. He doesn’t comment, though. 

The street looks too lively and upbeat for Madara to be a part of it. A little kid runs right through him, which earns two acutely disturbed looks. The kid shivers and starts crying.

“You have a face that makes little kids cry.” Naruto informs him. It doesn’t occur to him until it’s too late that he’s facing a woman selling bracelets and that no one else can see Madara. She flattens a hand to her chest and he grins nervously before darting into the crowd. 

Eventually he gets to the fruit stand, worms his way around a gaggle of women discussing this week’s food plan, and gets to the front of the line. The man behind the counter looks down the bridge of his nose at him but Naruto isn’t paying attention.

He grabs what might be a grapefruit and puts it in his bag. Madara stares as he inspects the bananas.

“... those aren’t ripe.” He eventually says. 

He frowns, and picks a different bunch. 

“... no.”

“Why are you trying to help me?” He whispers. “What’s your angle?”

Madara matches his look of contempt with his own. “I was curious to see whether you’d figure it out yourself. It’s my fault for overestimating your intellectual capabilities.”

“Bastard! You’re too much of an asshole to help.”

His eyes flash, and he points to the browning ones. “Of course, you’re right, I meant those ones.”

Naruto grins triumphantly and ignores the looks from passersby. He’s used to them. 

He puts his food in his bag and struts home.

(He was lying about the bananas. Naruto really should’ve seen that one coming).

“So like, hypothetically, if I threw salt at you could I kill you again?”

Madara, sitting rather rudely on his kitchen table, only glares, and looks down at the thick book perched on his lap. From the library. Which Naruto actually went to. Iruka saw him there and nearly had an aneurysm.

It’s a book on spirits, of course, with some dubious science mixed into the usual paranormal writings. It definitely doesn’t solidify his sanity to Iruka, that’s for sure.

“You don’t even have salt.”

Naruto pouts. It’s not his fault he can’t budget. 

“Whatever.” He crosses it off. 

(Apparently you’re not supposed to write on library books. Naruto is only allowed to leave after the librarian has given him a firm talking to and he goes with his tail between his legs).

Naruto lays on the track around the academy and tries to will his lungs to work through sheer force of will. Madara, who hadn't anything to say when they were doing laps, sits cross legged on the ground. Insofar as a ghost can sit. He’s just floating, lucky bastard. Naruto wishes he could float. 

“That was pathetic.”

“You’re not even a _helpful_ ghost.” Naruto whines. “I want a refund.”

Madara narrows his eyes. “Your form needs work. While you were sparring your entire left side was open. Your reckless abandon will get you killed in battle.”

“Hey! I’m gonna be Hokage one day!”

His laugh isn’t the least bit cheerful. “What would you want with that position? You’re a child, have you any idea of what the position is? Or the history of your village?”

Naruto blinks. “I’m not very good with history.”

Madara’s expression immediately turns from something bitter to irritated. “Come with me. You’re throwing shurikens until I see improvement.”

And, well, who’s he to say no?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi sorry this took so long school started and calc is beating me to death with a club
> 
> \- Sasuke and Hashirama are emotionally stupid but in opposite directions  
> \- Naruto and Madara are both equally petty towards each other and I think that's good for them


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke comes to about halfway through the day.

It’s one of those days, one that he floats, one of those days when the massacre burns beneath his skin and clings to his heels. Hashirama blabbers at his side while the trees rustle in the wind and kids kick a ball around the pavement.

He catches Naruto’s stare from across the playground and makes to glower, feeling Hashirama sigh beside him, before he gets clocked in the head by a wayward ball. Well, it might not have been an accident, but it’s that idiot’s fault for standing right in the middle of the crossfire.

“Dumbass.”

“Oh, come on.” Hashirama says. “Don’t be mean.”

“Then he shouldn’t be an idiot.”

Hashirama sighs again, and he feels a little vindicated in that respect.

Two months of searching have yielded no results about Hashirama’s ‘condition’, or whatever else he’s calling it now. It made searching a little harder considering he was still insisting on keeping his circumstances vague. Hours scrounging through whatever files the library had available to people with his clearance (which, was to say the least, minimal), had produced virtually nothing, aside from an old myth about the Hokage’s spirits being tied to their villages. It’s more of a children’s tale than anything else, but Sasuke believed the same about ghosts up until a couple of months ago.

The phenomenon with the trees hasn't happened again, either. Hashirama seems particularly disappointed about that. 

Someone is calling him to join the game. Probably Ino or Kiba.

He turns and pretends not to hear them.

“You should go play with them.” Hashirama says. “You could use some friends.”

“It’s a waste of my time.” He replies lowly. If nothing else, he’s gotten quite good at ignoring people. Hashirama probably wouldn’t consider that beneficial, so he doesn’t say it. “You said you would help with my Sharingan.”

Hashirama groans. “I said that so you would eat dinner, but, fine. After school. If you miss more, your teacher is gonna want to talk to you.”

Sasuke scrunches up his nose. Iruka-sensei would probably come to the, incorrect, assumption that it had something to do with the massacre - which he had insinuated before, on more than one occasion. He’d shot down _that_ olive branch rather aggressively. 

“Later.” He agrees, and narrows his eyes at Naruto, who appears to be talking to himself. He doesn’t have to say anything to convey his judgement to Hashirama, who maybe looks a little more nervous than he probably should be. “What is he doing.”

Naruto had improved marginally with his shuriken throwing, but only marginally. He also scored suspiciously high on the last history test - but not in most other subjects, which was also… strange and inconsistent. 

But he doesn’t care, and he isn’t curious. He has more important things to devote his time to.

School isn’t one of them, but it’s a necessary stepping stone. 

He stands up and heads inside.

The scrolls are neatly arranged in little pyramid-structures that he takes great pleasure in dismantling. 

They’re stamped with an array of seals that he doesn’t understand, and that Hashirama hasn’t had the opportunity to explain to him (though the extent to which he knows is up for debate). 

The library is, thankfully, quiet. Hashirama is, unfortunately, not.

The words knock around in his skull as he peruses the aisle for anything worth looking at. Diagrams depicting advanced fuinjutsu, four-pronged seals, a book with a weathered spine with a table of contents revolving around the safe storage of perishable food products. Hashirama tells him to make note of those, so he sighs and sticks it in the pile with the rest.

He smooths out the paper on the table so present to him, but Hashirama shakes his head.

“I’m not sure it _was_ a seal.” He says after a moment.

Sasuke grits his teeth, and it takes every ounce of his self control not to snap back. “Do you mean you made me come here for nothing?”

Across the room, the librarian looks up from his file. Sasuke hisses through his teeth. 

“Ah, I don’t quite remember.”

_“What?”_

He holds his hands up, as if there was anything Sasuke could do to touch him, let alone harm him. “Not _fully,_ anyways. I’m not sure if there was a seal involved, but if there is, this is a good place to start, because apparently we've broken something. It’s, uh, being dead is a little fuzzy. I know... that I'm not supposed to interact with the living world, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to end up with you. And it’s not very easy to get back - but. I’m not here by accident, and it has to do with you specifically, because, well, I’m not entirely sure of that, either, but it feels like there was some kind of seal involved, but it might have just had to do with you?”

“With _me?”_

He ducks his head and moves into another aisle.

“Explain.”

“I’m not sure how. Time doesn’t exactly move linearly for _dead people-”_

“We’re _leaving.”_

Attempt three of water-walking is marginally more successful than attempt one and two. Which is to say, he only falls in the water once. He’s still soaked to the bone, though, which is generally not something he enjoys being.

“Well,” Hashirama says. “You’re getting better! Improvement is improvement. Even if you look a little like a drowned cat.”

Sasuke glares, though it probably doesn’t come off quite like he intended because Hashirama just beams and tells him to try again while he admires the buildings around the lake and how much everything has changed. 

Sasuke wobbles, and catches himself.

Hashirama cheers.

Sasuke _doesn’t_ smile. He absolutely does not. 

Naruto drags himself off the track on his hands and knees.

“Why did I let you talk me into this?”

“Because you’re pathetic and in dire need of divine intervention.” Madara intones dryly, his hands crossed over his chest. “Now get up, you’re not done.”

“I’m gonna throw up.” He settles his head on the ground. “You deserve to be thrown up on.”

Madara curls his lip. “For a Jinchuuriki, you have exceptionally poor endurance.”

“You said that like it was an insult, but it sounds like a compliment.” Naruto picks himself off the ground on shaking arms and holds himself up through sheer force of will. “What’s a jinchuuriki, anyway?”

Madara narrows his eyes. “Are you so stupid that you don’t even recognize-”

“Actually, I don’t care. If you need me, I’m gonna pass out now.” 

“At least have the decency to die in your own home.” He sneers. “Get off the road. You’re an eyesore.”

_“I’m_ an eyesore? Your face gives little kids nightmares.”

“And to think I thought that might have something to do with me being dead.”

“Shut up.”

He takes another twenty minutes to peel himself off the ground, Madara glaring at him the entire time. He stands up, dusts himself off, and starts down the path home. 

“Did you bring your key this time?” Madara mocks. “Or are you going to break through your own window again?”

_“Ugh,_ I hate you!”

The woman crossing the road startles, and turns the other direction. 

“You should learn to keep your temper in check, if you’re so determined to be Hokage.”

“What do _you_ know about being a Hokage?” Naruto grumbles. “Stupid asshole ghost. You’re not even _alive.”_

“Is that supposed to be insulting?” He raises an eyebrow. “A man I considered to be my ally was the Hokage. I know full well what the position does, and it’s legacy. I don’t suppose you could name any of them?”

Naruto turns abruptly on his heel. “I don’t have to answer that.”

The hill overlooks a lake, and Naruto pauses in his efforts to dig his key that he definitely took with him this morning out of his pocket. He squints against the sun-glare and identifies the figure as none other than the bastard himself.

Madara stares down at the lake. “That’s the Uchiha child?”

“Yeah.” He grumbles. “That’s him. How do I do that?”

“You aren’t ready for that.”

“I could totally do that-!”

“You can’t even make a passable clone.”

Naruto grumbles and crosses his arms as Sasuke makes his trek across the lake.

“But you’ll teach me that eventually, right?”

Madara scoffs. “Eventually.”

“You should teach it to me now, though.”

Madara doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “You left your key next to the stove this morning.”

Naruto gawks. “Why didn’t you tell me when we left?!”

Madara doesn’t dignify that with an answer, either. “You were being particularly obnoxious.”

“Have I ever mentioned I hated you?”

“On a regular basis. The sentiment is shared.”

Naruto throws back his head and groans.

Sasuke’s ninth birthday comes and goes with little fanfare. 

He wakes up at the usual hour, neglects to make breakfast despite Hashirama’s nagging, eventually caves at no sooner than noon and makes the laziest thing he can possibly manage, and fully intends to spend the rest of the day on the couch or throwing shuriken.

“Don’t you want to go outside?” Hashirama prompts.

“No.”

“Oh, come on. You went to all that work of weeding the garden, you might as well go out and water the plants. You know, go out, smell the roses.”

“I haven’t watered anything in a week. They’re probably all dead.”

Hashirama sighs. “Are you doing this just to spite me?”

Yes.

“No.”

“Right. Then you should at least check on Puddles, right?”

“She’s fine.”

“Are you sure? She isn’t the brightest of creatures.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. 

“Fine.”

Puddles ends up sneaking inside, again. She might not be the brightest of creatures - as talented as she is at getting into his house, she’s completely incompitent at getting back out. She’s trapped in yet another cupboard, and he can’t get her to leave. 

“Fine!” He snaps at the long, fluffy tail peeking out from the crack in the door. “Stay there!”

He goes back inside so he doesn’t have to look at the stupid alley cat trapped in his kitchen and sits in the grass next to the river. It’s starting to get dark, and he can see the fireflies blinking in the distance. A dragonfly darts through the tall grass. Hashirama is quiet.

“When I was young, we had a game where we would catch fireflies. Do you want to learn?”

“That’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not! C’mon, it’s fun. Get up, I’ll show you how to do it.”

It looks like flailing, and it feels ridiculous. 

“Did you get it?”

He glances at the bioluminescence cradled in his palms. The firefly flickers to life, luminescent green. He smiles. 

Hashirama gapes. “You smiled!”

He immediately squashes it down, and the firefly gets away. “I didn’t.”

“You did.” 

“You’re imagining things.”

He turns and stomps back towards the house. 

“Are you sure there’s no way to get rid of you?”

“If I could leave,” Madara starts, in his shit-starting tone, “Don’t you think I would have?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He crosses ‘salt’ off the list of potential ways to get rid of ghosts. Not that most people seem to have any real experience with actual ghosts. All throwing salt had done was get salt all over his floor. Which he then had to clean up. “Any other ideas?”

He leans across the kitchen to open the refrigerator, and then in the cabinets.

“I’m out of food again.”

When he receives no response, he turns around, only to find that Madara is gone, probably back to hell where he belongs. 

“Ugh.” He slams the door shut.

“That man pushed you. Why.”

It’s less of a question and more of a demand. Naruto scratches the back of his head. “I dunno. They’re always like that. I’ll get him back later.”

Madara scowls. “Always?”

He seems to come to some realization. “You should do something about it.”

“Like what? Paint all over his shop? That’s a good idea.”

“Rip his throat out.”

_“Huh?”_

“Go, reclaim your dignity.”

“I can’t just start a street fight!”

“You could.” Madara disagrees. “It’s a rather simple concept.”

"No way, grandpa."

"Are you worried you'll lose?"

_"No!"_

Madara scoffs. They'll have to work on that, too.

Naruto tears through the kitchen, already late for school. Madara watches, floating above the table, ready to comment on his seeming inability to get up when his alarm dictates.

He steps out the door, swinging his jacket on, when Madara sighs and rolls his eyes. 

"Keys."

Oh, those. 

"Oh, yeah!"

He reaches onto the counter, pockets them, and races out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Madara vs. Hashirama parenting approaches
> 
> Hashirama: go talk to those kids they look nice! You should socialize more and get out of your shell a little :)
> 
> Madara, witnessing Naruto lose a kickball game: punch him in the teeth


	6. Chapter 6

Kakashi’s office is never dark. Seldom is ANBU headquarters ever empty, what with their line of work. Thus, he’s still sequestered in his office tending to the paperwork he’s been neglecting for the past week in favor of staring at the wall. 

He sorts through yet another pile of things he needs to sign off on and comes across a particularly strange assignment - one attached to a report, no less. He thumbs through it, leaning back in his chair, and huffs.

This seems like a little bit of an over exaggeration, but if nothing else, it might be interesting.

“There’s that ANBU member again.” Hashirama says. He’s perched just in the branches of the flowering tree near the high compound wall. Someone else might have mistaken him for sitting, but a keen eye told him that he was just floating there, as usual. Sasuke still hasn’t figured out what his obsession with it is, and doesn’t really want to know. 

“Again?”

He glances towards the treeline. He can’t see anything, but Hashirama is much better with perception than he is. If he concentrates, he might be able to sense a flickering chakra signature but that might as well be a bird or whatever else lives in the forest.

That doesn’t really explain what an ANBU agent is doing there, but Sasuke couldn’t possibly care less. As long as he isn’t caught talking to Hashirama, it doesn’t matter what they want.

He turns his back to where he presumes the agent is, and starts towards the gate. He wants to see if they follow.

“What does the village do about missing nin?”

Hashirama eyes him nervously. “Why do you ask?”

He scoffs. “To look for Itachi.”

“... right. It’s generally agreed upon that containing the threat is better than anything else, but ‘dead or alive’ is fine, by their standards. Unless anything has changed. I haven’t been around for a while.”

“Is the ANBU agent still there?”

“Um.” He squints. “I think so. They moved, though.”

Sasuke sighs. If anyone catches him having a detailed conversation with himself, he’ll definitely get booted on the basis of instability. Can’t have an unstable Uchiha, after all. No more than he can be expected to be, anyways. 

“So they’re following us.”

“They’re following _you.”_ Hashirama replies. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Because you’re _dead.”_ He turns left. Looks like he’ll just have to lose them, then.

“Sir.” Tenzo says, handing him his report. Kakashi spins in his office chair. Pakkun watches them indifferently from the corner of the room where Kakashi set up the dog bed that’s definitely against protocol. 

“You’re back!” Kakashi greets. “So, how’d it go? Nothing too challenging, I hope.”

He grimaces, visible even with her mask. “Some… strange behavior was recorded. I detailed it in the file.”

Kakashi skims the first page. ‘Suspect led Agent on a three hour chase through the forest, displaying incredibly precise chakra tracking’. He raises an eyebrow. “You let the ten year old outmaneuver you?”

He winces again. “My only orders were to observe him, not interfere. He was obviously aware that I was there.”

Kakashi snorts. “Well, he _is_ Itachi’s brother.”

Kakashi clicks his pen. “Hmm, alright. You’re dismissed.”

“Sasuke.” Hashirama starts, in that vaguely distressed way of his. “Please don’t antagonize the ANBU agents.”

“I wasn’t _antagonizing_ anyone.” He grumbles. “You seemed willing to help a few seconds ago.”

Hashirama scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “The first couple of times were fun. But this isn’t making you look any less suspicious.”

“They think I’m suspicious anyways.” He replies. “Now do something useful or go away.”

He pouts like a kicked puppy. “Okay, _okay._ You have to be careful, though.”

Sasuke glares until he relents. 

“Okay, but elemental jutsu can be… fickle. Since you’re a lightning nature lightning jutsu should be easier. A friend taught me this. His brother was a lightning nature too, though I don’t suppose you would recognize his name.”

“History is useless to me. Are you going to teach me, or not?”

Hashirama waves a hand. “I said I would, now - repeat the hand signs after me.”

Madara glares over his shoulder. Not that he ever isn’t glaring, but this is a suspicious glare. So far, Naruto has categorized four: the angry glare, most usually pointed towards him, the suspicious glare, which he’s now weaponizing against some poor old lady, the surprised glare, which seems contradictory but he manages to pull off, and the annoyed glare, which is like the angry glare but less severe. 

“What are you looking at now?” He tries to follow his gaze. “Try not to set anyone on fire.”

Madara clicks his tongue. “As if I could, in this pathetic state. Do you mean to tell me you can’t sense them?”

“Sense what?” He hikes a paper bag full of ramen and fruit higher on his hip. “Maybe you’re just crazy.”

“You mean to tell me I’m the crazy one between the two of us? Last I checked, I wasn’t the one talking to an apparition.”

“Shut up!” He glares. “You seem pretty real to me.”

“You say that as if it's empirical proof.” Madara replies dryly. “Has the Academy curriculum failed so terribly that you can’t sense the ANBU agents? Or perhaps ANBU has failed in teaching its participants how to mask their chakra.”

Naruto… wasn’t following any of that.

“Uh huh.” He says, not listening. “Sure, yep.”

“Do they always follow you?” He shakes his head with a disgusted scoff. “As if you ever would have noticed.”

He follows silently for a while, allowing Naruto to focus on picking out groceries. Madara seems too preoccupied to insult his food choices, too, which is always nice. 

“-with you being a Jinchuuriki?”

“What?” Naruto zones back in. “What about what?”

Madara hisses through his teeth. “I don’t know why I bother.”

“No!” He says. A few people flinch and swerve around him. He sticks out his tongue. “I want to know now!”

“Leave it.” Madara replies, crossing his arms. “And go home. I want to see if they follow you.”

Naruto huffs, digging his chin into his collar. “Fine, fine, bossy.”

“Sir, I think this is beneath my paygrade.” Tenzo drops his second report on the table. Kakashi grins. “Isn’t that better? Same pay, but less work!”

He sighs. “Is this because of last week’s incident?”

“I’m surprised it took you that long to figure it out, honestly. Next time, maybe don’t cause so much property damage for me to sort out. There’s a reason your team wracks up the most property damage.”

“In my defense, most of that was Shisui’s fault.”

“Mhmm,” Kakashi drawls. “So, your report?”

“Filed, sir. The Jinchuuriki was seen exhibiting some… _strange_ behavior.”

“Such as?” Kakashi rests his chin on steepled fingers. He wants to know if Iruka’s complaints concerning two of his students had been real concerns after all. 

“Talking to himself often. Not just that, but holding full conversations with himself.”

Kakashi hums. “We’ll give it a few more days.”

Sasuke is scattering cat food on the ground when Hashirama leans over his shoulder again. “They’re back again.”

He shakes the bag a little harder, and glares at Puddles. “Aren’t you supposed to be related to the cat summons?” He shakes the bag again. “Do something.”

Puddles, predictably, does nothing.

He sighs angrily. “What do they want?”

“There were Agents watching you before, too.”

“Because they thought Itachi might come back.”

Hashirama winces. “Alright, then obviously they think something else is amiss.”

Sasuke grumbles, and sits the bag against the wall. Puddles scratches his leg. He exhales, flat faced, and picks her up. It’s even harder to look intimidating with a cat pawing at his hair, but he doesn’t care. 

“What?” Hashirama raises an eyebrow. “What are you thinking? _Please_ tell me it’s nothing illegal.”

“It’s nothing illegal.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It’s nothing illegal.” He reiterates, and turns to go inside. He’s given up trying to keep her out of the house, so last week he caved and bought her a bowl (Hashirama insisted that he buy the two blue ones, with the stupidest pun he’s ever seen on them). He kicks the door shut and starts towards the front entrance.

“Where are we going?”

“To see a family friend.”

Madara spends the entire day glaring out the window. Naruto occasionally sneaks a glance, but he doesn’t see anything other than the wayward crow perched on the roof or an enthusiastic squirrel. Maybe Madara just hates animals. It wouldn’t surprise him. 

At recess, he asks.

“What were you looking at all day?”

“Your sensing abilities are abysmal.”

Jokes on him, Naruto doesn’t even know what that means. 

“The ANBU agent again. He’s closer than last time.”

“Um. Okay?”

“Does that mean nothing to you at all?”

Naruto picks at his lunch. “Nope.”

Madara stares. “I continue to be baffled by your sheer incompetence.”

Naruto points a carrot at him like a weapon. “You’re the one that’s haunting me! Just go back to hell already! I don’t need your stupid help!”

“On the contrary, you need as much help as you can get.” Naruto gawks, vibrating with indignant anger, but Madara has already moved on. “What have you done in the past week?”

“I don’t know. I painted that mustache on the second Hokage - what was his name? Toe-bi-”

“Tobirama.” Madara spits. “Irrelevant. If that was what this was about, then they would’ve looked into it sooner. I hardly think anyone cares about the defacement of that creature-”

“Ugh, I don’t remember! You’re with me all the time anyways, shouldn’t you know?”

“You say that as if I want to be here.”

“Well then, why don’t you leave? Haunt somebody else!”

“I’m not _haunting_ you.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re a ghost and you won’t leave me alone, I’m _pretty sure_ that’s what ‘haunting’ is-”

“Be quiet.”

“What? Don’t tell me to-”

“Be _quiet._ The Agent is listening to you.”

Naruto sulks, but lowers his voice. “It’s not like I’m saying anything bad.”

“As far as he’s concerned, you’re not talking to anyone at all.” Madara crosses his arms. “You need to be more cautious if you don’t intend to die in the field, as you seem determined to do.”

He pouts. "Am _not_. What am I supposed to do? Ignore you? Because you didn't like that very much."

"Act normal long enough for them to leave you alone, unless that's too difficult for you."

"Asshole."

"So... nothing new to report?"

Tenzo shifts. "No. I wasn't able to get a visual on Sasuke, but Naruto still displayed the same behavior."

Kakashi looks down at his report. He _could_ make a report about this, but really, that's too much work, and it's almost funny playing babysitter. He shrugs. "Leave it be. The Sandaime wants them in the running anyways. It's probably better if we don't stir the pot."

"If you say so."

He exits quietly, leaving Kakashi to consider the _second_ proposal he'd gotten that day. 

Really, he sighs, things would probably be getting interesting for him rather soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday but I got a really bad migraine
> 
> Madara is the type of person to say 'back in my day' unironically
> 
> This chapter is pretty much an intermission of sorts before we get to the time skip. Kakashi's little reference to a new assignment at the end isn't one he's too thrilled about but the Hokage likes planning ahead, especially when it comes to making teams ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Hound - who Hashirama has helpfully identified as Kakashi - has been perched on the corner of his roof like a gargoyle for the past three hours. If he doesn’t get moving now, Sasuke is going to be late to his stupid graduation, and Hashirama will probably cry, and he is in no way prepared to deal with that. 

“You really should get going.” Hashirama says, watching him rewrap the bandages around his leg. A shuriken-related training incident gone wrong, because it had _definitely_ not landed on the pole where it was supposed to. It _wasn’t even his fault._ That Naruto twerp was hiding in the bushes outside the compound and, despite his obnoxious disposition and apparent lack of social etiquette, was doing a surprisingly good job of hiding. Sasuke isn’t sure what he was looking for and doesn’t want to know. “You don’t want to miss graduation!”

“It’s not like it was ever up for debate.” He rolls his eyes, and hesitates just before the door. Kakashi is definitely still on the roof. He’s reluctant to just leave him there, because it’s never good to have ANBU lurking around. If they’d gone back to surveillance, it just meant he had to be more careful, even though that fiasco had calmed down after they’d failed to dig up adequate evidence that he was psychologically compromised. Oh, he’s sure the village would’ve loved that. “It isn’t a big deal.”

Hashirama gasps from the other side of the room, and the plant by his side perks up before wilting again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of concrete evidence about paranormal activity floating around any Konoha libraries (not any that he had access to, anyways), and anything they could’ve found out about that… situation… continues to elude them.

(Sasuke would really prefer it if they could figure it out sooner rather than later, considering that one of the alley cats broke through the door yesterday and startled Hashirama so bad that one of the branches from the adjacent tree smashed the window apart).

 _“Isn’t a big deal!_ This is a _huge deal,_ I’ll have you know! Finally a Shinobi! A member of your village!”

Sasuke tugs his hands through his hair. His face feels hot. “You’re so _annoying.”_

“I wish I had a camera.” He laments. “What a useful invention. But I couldn’t even hold one.”

“A travesty.” Sasuke grumbles as he slams the door shut just a little harder than strictly necessary. He feels Kakashi’s eyes on his back as he walks away.

 _What’s up with that?_

Whatever. He doesn’t want to know.

Graduation is everything Naruto expected it to be, and he is _not_ crying. Absolutely not. That would be ridiculous. And embarrassing. 

… he’s getting snot on his sleeve.

Madara wrinkles his nose distastefully. “Compose yourself. This is an accomplishment.”

His test grades were still abysmal, considering Madara was about as far from reliable as they came, and had the habit of feeding him the wrong answers to see if he noticed - which he generally didn’t. But he passed, and he's a Shinobi now, and he has a hitai-ate and everything to prove it. 

“These are happy tears.” 

“This is disgraceful.”

Naruto ignores him (and the bewildered looks from his classmates, all as equally surprised at his turn around as he was) and ties his hitai-ate around his head. He surveys his classmates, all sharing in the enthusiasm, except for a certain bastard. He isn’t even surprised he’s sulking in the corner. He could at least try to look excited. 

“Don’t make enemies with the Uchiha.” Madara says. Naruto huffs. It’s not like they even talk, so he doesn’t know how they could be enemies. He’d definitely punch him in his stupid face if given the opportunity, though. 

Speaking of the bastard, he’s scowling more than usual to some vague space beside him. Naruto frowns. Is there a spider or something? Sasuke is probably the type of person to be afraid of spiders.

Madara narrows his eyes too. He always gets weird and quiet (well, he was always weird and quiet, but more _brooding_ and less _feral hobo who lives in the woods_ ) when he looks at Sasuke for too long. Naruto would probably get broody if he had to look at that idiot too. Sounds depressing.

“Hey, this is _my_ graduation!”

Madara raises an eyebrow. “Yes, and it might do you well to pay attention to your instructor.”

Well, it’s not like he missed anything important. Just the address to the families, which he doesn’t have anyways, but he doesn’t really care about that, because Madara is right behind him anyways, which is way closer than anyone else with their stupid happy parents. This is a competition and he’s winning.

Iruka congratulates them one more time, and Sasuke ducks off the stage like his life depends on it.

Naruto snorts. “Weirdo.”

“Can you please shut up?”

Hashirama has been gushing for the past twenty minutes and seriously trying his patience. His usual babble was uncomfortably heartfelt and Sasuke was seriously debating just throwing himself off the stage because he couldn’t reply without looking as crazy as Naruto.

“I’m so proud of you-!”

 _“Stop.”_

This is embarrassing and he’s literally the only person that can hear it. 

“I wonder who your Sensei will be.” He muses. “When we set up this system, we needed some sort of guidance for the graduates, so we made it so that small groups would train under senior Jounin.”

Sasuke’s mouth twists. “They’re a hindrance.”

“They’re not! You have to cooperate if you want to be a Shinobi!”

“I _want_ to kill my brother.”

Hashirama sighs, long and defeated. He’d managed to curb some of Sasuke’s more troublesome habits, but that one was not going to get bent out of him, no matter what he says. Now he’s a graduate and he can be a Shinobi and leave the village, and Hashirama is making this moment of triumph mortifying. 

“I guess we’ll just have to wait.” Hashirama settles, knowing better than to pick a fight. “I wonder who your teammates will be, as well…” 

His mouth twists. “Don’t talk about it.”

The teams are, in fact, worse than he ever could’ve imagined. Paired with Naruto, of all people, and Sakura, who he doesn’t really have an opinion outside of the fact that she’s presently staring at him and it’s annoying. 

“This is wonderful!” Hashirama intercepts. “You’ll make a fine team.”

Unfortunately, if there’s a way to kill a ghost a second time, Sasuke is yet to find it.

He taps his foot and tries not to think about it too much.

Now they just have to wait for their new sensei.

Naruto and Sakura are caught in some petty argument beside him, one that he wants no part in, and he stares out the window instead while Hashirama attempts to manipulate the long vines growing near the windowsill. Still no progress, apparently. Nothing besides an instinctual reaction seems to yield any results. Not that he really cares. All the ability does, no matter how inextricable, is break his windows.

He must have the worst luck in the world.

“Well.” Hashirama amends after a minute. “An unfair team, anyways.”

“What are you going on about?” He says under his breath, and glances right to make sure none of them noticed. Sakura is too busy throwing chalk at Naruto to be concerned with him. 

“Well - I suppose anyone would’ve been an unfair addition. The Jinchuuriki and the last Uchiha. A rather polarizing combination, don’t you think? I assume she’s supposed to be a buffer.”

It was kind of easy to forget that Hashirama was actually competent enough to serve as Hokage at one point, no matter how airheaded he seemed. 

“Not a lot of chakra - but that just opens doors for control-based techniques.”

“Stop looking at people’s chakra.”

Naruto is positioning the eraser on the top of the door, like an idiot. If their new sensei didn’t kill him, then his stupidity definitely would.

Of course, he’s not expecting him to walk right into it, and he’s definitely not expecting it to be _Kakashi,_ who has apparently left his roof.

What the _fuck._

“Kakashi!” Hashirama exclaims, just as Sasuke goes, _“You.”_

Kakashi, like the bastard he is, waves lazily. “My first impression of you brats? I hate all of you.”

Sakura looks like she wants to cry. Even Naruto looks dumbfounded.

“No wonder he was waiting on the roof!” Hashirama adds cheerfully. Not for the first time, Sasuke wishes he was tangible enough for Sasuke to hit him. 

“We’re going up to the roof. You have five minutes.”

And then their teacher, who is _two hours late,_ walks out on them.

“I’m sure he’s… well intentioned.” Hashirama says.

“I’m going to throw myself out this window.”

Kakashi is not meant to be a teacher. By this point, what with the some seven teams he’s rejected, the Hokage should really have caught on by now. Unfortunately for him, he and Sasuke are the only two people left in the village that still have a Sharingan, and Naruto needs to be around them if they hope to keep the Kyuubi contained. 

They’re all… about what he was expecting from them. Naruto with the pranks (though he was a little surprised by Sakura encouraging them), with Sasuke staring into the middle distance and occasionally contributing to a conversation that only he seemed to hear. Good to know he hadn't grown out of that particular habit. 

Not that Kakashi really has any room to judge when it comes to coping mechanisms, of course.

Sakura and Naruto race up the stairs, barely on time, neck and neck as they try to beat the other. She trips him on the last step and, while not exactly good sportsmanship, it’s good for being a Shinobi. That cutthroat ambition can probably be cultivated. Just not by him. 

(Of course, the Hokage had made it _exceedingly clear_ that this team wasn’t to be failed, no matter how abysmally they performed. There was no getting out of this one). 

Sasuke, the brat, walks up the side of the building and glares at him the entire time. He’s delegated enough of his ANBU (not his anymore) to babysitting this little hellion (and the other hellspawn by the name of Naruto Uzumaki) to know that neither of them were normal by any means, and that this was going to be a disaster. 

“Alright, group sharing time.”

“Please don’t tell them your goal is to kill your brother-”

“I’m going to kill my brother.”

Naruto and Sakura blanch. Kakashi doesn’t look surprised, just like he wasn’t expecting it to be that blunt. 

“What do you mean you want to _kill your brother?”_ Sakura squawks. 

“You have a _brother?”_

_Not anymore._

Hashirama pinches the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to go around announcing it, Sasuke!”

Kakashi still doesn’t look impressed. “Careful what you share.” He says eventually. Sasuke wishes he could set him on fire with his eyes alone. 

Hashirama sighs, and then glances at Naruto for a suspiciously long time while he ignores whatever Kakashi is telling them. Something about training grounds at seven. Whatever.

He seems… unusually happy about something. And now he’s babbling. Sasuke blocks that out too.

“Alright. You’re dismissed.” Kakashi says, and pulls his stupid disappearing trick. Sakura looks pale and shaky. “Guys! Why aren’t you more upset!”

“That bastard says he’s gonna send us back to the academy if we fail!”

Oh, he is _not_ going back there. 

“Then we just have to pass.”

Sakura stares at him incredulously before he turns on his heel and walks back downstairs. 

“What’s up with you?” Naruto glares over his shoulder at Madara, glaring at Sasuke. 

“It’s almost as if…” He says very carefully. “I sense something about him.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Madara, of course, chooses not to elaborate. 

“I want to see if my suspicions are correct.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He grumbles. “You have all the time in the world now that we’re on the same team.”

“Stop whining. You’re lucky you graduated at all.”

 _“Hey.”_

“Now, hurry up or you won’t have time to practice with your shuriken.”

Naruto groans. “You’re the worst.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip! Basically this is where I got the original idea for this fic and here I am to make it happen. Kakashi is not ready to be a dad he's very bad at it. Also I have a tumblr now it's anxiety-pickle


	8. Chapter 8

Kakashi’s new team (the words are sour on his tongue; unfortunately he’s legally not allowed to fail them) are decidedly… strange.

Given, he considered all children some degree of unfathomable, but these three especially so. No necessarily in terms of ability, either. Sasuke’s was considerable, Naruto’s sometimes bordered on competency, and Sakura, though physically unassuming, was book smart and had a temper that could probably match Tsunade’s.

He’s already given up on the hope that there would be anything even remotely normal about his team. He gave up on that the moment the Sandaime approached him with his proposal. He has enough experience with Naruto and Sasuke to know there was something not quite right about the two of them, but he certainly wasn’t expecting… this.

He arrives three hours late on the bridge he instructed them to meet at. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and he’s gonna run these kids into the ground. A little like tradition.

He has the distinct feeling that Minato-sensei probably wouldn’t be too proud of him.

Oh well.

“You’re three hours late!” Sakura yells. She’s forgone all pretenses of being a respectful student, which is a little refreshing. Naruto joins in the crowing, yelling with her and pointing accusing fingers, while Sasuke keeps his distance and glares as if Kakashi personally killed his dog. 

“Terribly sorry.” He raises a hand. “I got lost on the way.”

_“Liar.”_ She seethes. 

Ha. Indeed.

_“Anyways,”_ He drawls. “Is everyone ready for the test?”

All of them straighten like taut wire, even brooding little Sasuke in his corner of the bridge, and his day becomes significantly better. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You already have it ready?” Sakura squawks. “Is that what you were doing?”

No, but she doesn’t need to know that. 

“Questioning your superior officer?” He flattens a hand dramatically to his chest. “I didn’t think you were the type!”

She sputters, probably more out of shock than anything else, but Naruto quickly steps in to fill the silence left behind. Not before yelling enthusiastically at the empty space beside him, though. 

That’s a little weird.

But, it’s not like he of all people has the right to judge anyone’s coping mechanisms, so he’ll let it slide. Sasuke and Sakura are not so forgiving; Sakura curls her lip and Sasuke’s blank expression becomes slightly less blank in an expression that Kakashi is going to guess is disdain. 

“Don’t worry, the rules are quite simple.” He steps into the field and sets his hands on his hips. The three stare intently, eyes wide and naive, as he pulls the two bells from his belt and dangles them in his hands. 

This is bound to be interesting.

“This is clearly a test to see who can get to the bells first.” Madara says. “Incapacitate your competition. Kill if necessary.”

_“No!”_ He sputters. “I’m not gonna-”

Kakashi-bastard blinks his one visible eye at him. “Oh? Who are you talking to?”

“None of your business! Stop eavesdropping!”

“It isn’t eavesdropping if you’re announcing it to the world.” Madara replies dryly. “You might as well go for the bells, if you’re standing there.”

_“Fuck_ you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not you.” Naruto groans, and rakes his hands through his hair. “Screw it!”

“Don’t engage him head on, you imbecile. You’re a Shinobi, aren’t you?”

“I’m not gonna hide!”

“Have I taught you nothing? That’s a Shinobi’s primary duty-” 

Kakashi doesn’t even think to attack; just lets his arguably insane soon-to-be student argue with what must appear to him nothing at all. 

“I’ll try out that new jutsu.” He says, and Madara sighs. It was Madara who informed him of the technique at all - and it really wasn’t his fault that the insane teacher with one hell of a vendetta decided to crash the party and try to kill him. He wouldn’t have even needed the stupid scroll if Madara wasn’t such a terrible teacher. 

Fifty shadow clones burst to life and Kakashi pauses for a second. Madara cackles. 

(Oh, right, this technique is forbidden, isn’t it?)

“This test is clearly meant to make you cooperate.” Hashirama says, hovering obnoxiously over his shoulder. Sasuke would smack him out of his personal space if he were tangible. And he’s tried. Many times before, all similarly unsuccessful.

“How do you know?”

“I’m familiar with this method of testing.” He replies. Sasuke crouches lower on the branch and stares out through the canopy. He’s pretty sure Sakura hid, but Naruto had charged right for him and Sasuke had taken the opportunity to get out while he still could. There was no way the three of them alone could take on a Jounin, so clearly there was an angle to the test, but this was Kakashi of the Sharingan, and somehow cooperation didn’t seem like something he would make his pass or fail test about. 

Then again, he also wasn’t exactly what he was expecting personality-wise, so who knew?

“It’s called the bell test. One of you is supposed to sacrifice yourself for it so the team as a whole achieves the objective.”

That’s… conceptually cruel, but a staple to what will be Shinobi life.

(Sasuke isn’t sure how much ‘Shinobi life’ he’s going to be participating in. As soon as he can get out of this village and go after Itachi, he’ll be gone. Whatever Kakashi or Hashirama has to teach him is only meaningful insofar as how he can use it against his brother).

“I suggest you find Sakura. I’m sure she can assist you with tactics.”

He sighs, glances back at the stretch of open field where he could’ve gone for a bell head on, and decides against it. He doesn’t think he can last long enough in a fight to actually retrieve the bell, not in a one on one combat situation, though he does mourn the lost opportunity to flaunt the Raiton Hashirama had taught him.

He drops down to the earth. He’s fairly sure she hid herself somewhere in the bushes in this direction…

“Sasuke!” She hisses, crouched beneath an overhang of green shrubbery. Sasuke sinks to the ground next to her. “Where’s Naruto?”

“That idiot? I think he’s in the lake now.”

“The _lake?”_

“He tried to take on Kakashi-sensei by himself! And-” She bites her lip. “I think he was using a forbidden technique.”

“Shadow clones, I believe.” Hashirama adds unhelpfully. “Though I didn’t know it was banned. I wonder where he learned it?”

The tail end of that question sounds just a little too accusing for Sasuke’s taste. It isn’t worth his time, he really doesn’t care what convoluted theory he’s entertaining now is. 

“So…?” Her tone grows hopeful. “Do you want to work together?”

He grunts. “I don’t think we have much of a choice. What can you do?”

While Naruto inadvertently distracts Kakashi with… whatever it is he’s doing, Sasuke sets up several coils of wire tied to shurikens. Neither of them are well versed enough in genjutsu to make a better attempt at hiding them. If anything, it would probably make the gleam of silver hidden in the foliage more noticeable if Kakashi could trace the chakra. 

“Okay.” Sakura says, finishing her end of the wire. “Now we just need to get Naruto’s attention.”

“Ugh.” Naruto kneels in the dubiously murky water in the shallows of the lake, glaring through sopping bangs at Kakashi.

“Get up.” Madara orders, and stares at Kakashi with his inscrutable, intense glare. “He’s insulting your strength. While he reads that book, he leaves his left side open. Look at the placement of his knee.”

Naruto squints against the glare of the sun. He doesn’t really see the difference that Madara is talking about… well, there is a changing shadow there.

“And you should be able to tell which shadow clones are yours.” He berates. Naruto stands, glaring at him. “They’re made from _your chakra,_ you should be able to tell when he's impersonating one.” 

Naruto grits his teeth. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, grandpa."

“Trying again are we?” Kakashi drawls. “Better hurry up, time is running out.”

Madara pauses and stares at an indistinct spot over Kakashi’s right shoulder.

“Your teammates.”

Naruto follows his gaze, attempting to do it more subtly this time so Kakashi doesn’t catch on, and does in fact see Sasuke and Sakura, the latter of whom is waving her hand at him.

“What?”

“I assume she wants to cooperate. If she already has the Uchiha brat on her side then you’re not likely to get the bell by working on your own.”

“Okay-”

“Wait.” Madara snaps, ever irritable, just as he begins to step forward and out of the water eagerly. “You can’t just expect your opponent to give you an opening. If he was a real enemy you would've been killed by now with your incessant dawdling. Use your shadow clones.”

“Right!” He taps his fingers together, and his army of shadow clones burst to life.

“Sakura.” Naruto pants, hurtling under the branches to join her in her hiding place. “I’m pretty sure he figured out that I left.”

She presses a finger to her lips. “Quiet! That’s part of the plan, we just have to wait now.”

“For what-?”

Kakashi steps towards the wire, and Sakura pulls with all her might.

A barrage of weapons flies from the trees. An excessive amount of weapons, Sakura might say, but they’re fighting a Jounin and he can probably dodge that, probably. Sasuke should know what he’s doing, right? 

He does dodge them - substitute, too. Damn.

“Part two!” She says, and sprints towards the second placement of wires. She tightens its stranglehold around the branch, listening to Naruto stomp through the leaves after her, and lets go immediately.

Lightning courses down the length of the wire, bright and hot and quick, momentarily blinding, and she hears a sharp inhale, and then silence.

Naruto pokes his head up. “Did we do it?”

“Not quite.” 

Kakashi pushes the frowning ferns aside with one hand, dropping Sasuke down next to them before shaking his hand, which, Sakura notes with some satisfaction, is slightly burnt. 

“That.” He says. “Was _almost_ smart.”

The timer goes off in the distance, and the three of them wilt.

Sakura looks at the faces of her would be teammates.

“Aw _shit.”_

Of all things, Kakashi didn’t expect Sasuke to pull Raiton on him (where did he even learn that?) and he really hadn't expected them to demonstrate any compatibility at all, no matter how pitiful it might have been, so this is a pleasant surprise, even if the brat did shock him after he’d escaped the trap. Maybe they weren’t completely hopeless. They had potential, at least.

“You can’t send us back!” Naruto shrieks. Sasuke kicks him in the shin. “Shut up.” Sakura does absolutely nothing to diffuse the tension; clearly she wasn’t the peacekeeper the Sandaime had intended her to be. 

“Now, now.” He clicks his tongue. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

“Huh?” Naruto pauses with a fistful of Sasuke’s hair. Sasuke shoves him off. “What are you saying?”

“You passed!”

Sakura stares at him as if he’d grown a second head. “... but we didn’t get the bells.”

“Correct.”

She stares harder. “... the objective was to get the bells. Which we didn’t.”

“Shh!” Naruto hisses. “He’s passing us!”

"I _know_ that, but-"

"You displayed the intent and ability to work together." Kakashi interrupts. "And that was the purpose of the test. All three of you pass, congratulations."

Sakura and Naruto stare at him, dumbfounded, for a moment, before they both erupt into cheers. Sasuke's shoulders slump with relief and he even offers his own twitch of a smile. Kakashi plops his hands on Sakura and Naruto's heads. He passes Sasuke, though; he looks like he'd probably bite.

Team seven, huh?

Kakashi is very much not attached. No, not at all.

(He's a little attached).

He's not going to let it be his undoing, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guess who's not dead. It's me. I finished college applications and I feel dead, though
> 
> Kakashi: I've known team 7 for five minutes but if anything happened to them I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early Valentine's Day ConfusionCucumber!! You own my entire heart and soul thank you for making me write this chapter

Kakashi is late. Again. Sasuke is sensing a pattern. 

Sakura paces the length of the bridge, arms folded behind her back. Based on how she acted back in the academy, he definitely wasn't expecting her to be as exuberant as Naruto, even if she expressed it in more... violent ways than their resident idiot. “I swear to god if he makes us chase that same cat _one more time-”_

Sasuke tunes the rest of that complaint out. Between the three of them, Naruto suffered the worst of Tora’s rage. Apparently, neither of his teammates had ever witnessed the sheer destructive potential that cats, summons or not, were capable of, and bore the consequences. Naruto is still covered in bandaids. 

“How does it keep getting out?” Hashirama asks. “One would think a responsible cat owner wouldn’t manage to lose their cat multiple times.” 

Sasuke grumbles under his breath. “Well it’s not coming to stay in the district if that’s what you’re implying.” 

Hashirama looks affronted. “It was just a thought.” 

Naruto stomps across the bridge. Sasuke can’t tell if he’s yelling at them, Kakashi, or himself. He doesn’t think he wants to know.

Dumbass. Is that what he looks like when he talks to Hashirama? Is that what Kakashi thinks of him?

... no wonder he had that ANBU unit spy on them. 

Hashirama watches him thoughtfully. Sakura isn’t close enough to hear him over the water, so he asks, “What are you looking at now?”

“Just… trying to confirm a hunch.”

Sasuke scrunches his nose up. “A hunch? About him? Is it that he’s insane?”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s the nicest way of putting it-”

“Sasuke!” Sakura calls, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear with a nervous hand. Hashirama perks up and scolds him quietly to pay attention, like the nuisance he is. He definitely _does not sulk, Hashirama,_ and folds his arms in front of his chest, leaning up against the railing and squeezing himself as far away from his teammates as physically possible.

“What?” He tries not to glare. He mostly fails.

She visibly shrinks back, digging the toe of her sandal into the wood. “I was just wondering if you could, um, maybe teach me the walking on water thing you can do?”

Naruto stirs at that, too, pointing an accusing finger. “Yeah! Where’d you learn that, huh?!”

“My cousin was in ANBU.” He _very pointedly_ doesn’t mention Itachi, especially after confessing to his desire to violently murder said brother, because that would probably be weird. To remind them of that. It wasn’t surprising that Sakura didn’t know about most aspects of Shinobi life, considering she’d been raised a civilian, but Sasuke had more than enough exposure to Shinobi conduct. 

“Oh, really?” Sakura looks like she wants to question that. He’s pretty sure that she knows his clan is dead. Pretty sure. “It has to do with chakra control, doesn’t it?”

“Observant.” Hashirama notes. “She’ll be a fine Shinobi. Sasuke, go help your friends.”

The last thing he wants to do is teach these two specifically about the ins and outs of chakra control, but now they’re looking at him and Naruto is gearing up for another shrieking match with his imaginary friend, and he doesn’t have the strength to deal with them. Maybe Kakahi is just avoiding them. He honestly can’t blame him.

Well, he does blame him. But he understands, at least, why one would wish to spend the least amount of time around them as possible.

“Fine.” He grounds out. Sakura cheers and pumps a fist in the air. Naruto grumbles at the empty space next to him. “Go down to the river.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, bastard!” Naruto snaps, before following Sakura down to the riverbank. He scoffs, and Hashirama laughs.

“They’re energetic, at least.”

“I wish they would shut up. And they’re not my friends. I don’t want friends.”

“Right.” Hashirama says, resting a ghostly hand on his head. He has half a mind to be disturbed by the tingling sensation, but he’s too used to it to be unsettled. Which is sort of unsettling in itself. It's kind of ironic, how of all the ghosts he could be haunted by in the compound, it's _this_ one. “Now don’t keep them waiting too long, will you?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes.

Kakashi-bastard doesn’t show up until at least an hour later. The sun is high in the sky, the water stopped being cold a good twenty minutes ago, and Naruto still hasn’t mastered the ability to walk on water. He blames it on Sasuke. Does he have any basis for this conclusion? No. Does he care? Also no.

Madara grimaces at his attempts. Now that the bastard is on his team and Naruto is forced to be in his proximity much more often than usual, it’s harder to ignore how similar the two of them look. It’s weird. It’s unsettling. He doesn’t like it. 

He should probably tell Sasuke that his undead great-great-whatever-grandfather is haunting him, but based on how Iruka-sensei reacted, he doubts that that would get a good reaction. If anything, that would just make him think Naruto was even crazier than he already did.

“Your chakra control is still poor.” Madara chides. “Have I taught you nothing?”

“No! You’re a shit teacher, grandpa!” He pushes his wet bangs out of his eyes. Sakura giggles behind her hand. She got the hang of it almost instantly, matching the oscillation of her chakra to the quiet rippling of the river current. Naruto, unfortunately, has no such luck. 

Stupid fucking Jinchuuriki chakra. 

“Look - the civilian girl’s control is admirable. You can’t hide behind your excuses forever.”

“Excuse you, this is a perfectly good excuse.” He grumbles. It wasn’t his fault he happened to house a giant chakra demon inside him, now was it? 

“You gotta-” Sakura snorts, choking on her laughter. “Guide it to your feet, don’t force it- No!”

He takes another trembling step over the water, and goes under with a yelp and stream of bubbles. He gets his head above water long enough to see Madara dragging a hand down his face with a sigh. Ghosts don’t even need to breathe, the dramatic asshole. 

“I think I’m doing great.” He tells him pointedly. Sasuke arches a brow, snapped out of his surely riveting hobby of staring at the horizon for hours at end.

(Disassociating, Madara had called it, when he asked, because he seemed to know what that was, and he wasn't a _complete_ asshole. Just mostly one. He sounds out the syllables against the roof of his mouth the way he sounded them out for him: _Dis-a-sso-ci-a-ting)._

“You just gotta, maybe try… not what you’re doing now.”

“How insightful.” Sasuke drawls, like the asshole he is. He, Naruto thinks, would get along with Madara swimmingly. Truly a match made in hell. Who knows, maybe it’s a family thing.

Kakashi-bastard chooses that moment to appear on the bridge in a snap of wind and a stupidly artful cyclone of leaves, waving a gloved hand sheepishly. Naruto screams and falls back in the water. Sakura catches herself on her palms before she can sink beneath the water, and Sasuke _sparks._ With _lightning._

Kakashi-sensei blinks at them with his one visible eye. “Oh? Are my cute little students training without me?”

“Well it’s not like you were doing anything!” Sakura stomps, pointing an accusing finger at him. Kakashi almost looks impressed. Almost.

“On the contrary, I was giving you a chance to work together. It’s almost like you don’t need my help at all!”

Sakura screeches and charges onto the bridge. Sasuke sighs and trudges after her, stopping at Naruto’s side. 

“Don’t take his pity.” Madara hisses. Oh, yeah, he and Sasuke would definitely get along. _I should introduce them_.

Sasuke twitches, pauses, and then offers him a hand. “C’mon, idiot.”

Naruto pointedly ignores his ghostly companion and grabs it, yanking himself up with an unnecessary amount of force. “I don’t need your help.”

Sasuke scoffs. “I didn’t say you did, idiot.”

Naruto squawks. Before another fight can break up, Kakashi grabs them both by the shoulders and hauls them up onto the bridge.

Sakura shifts her weight between her feet, wringing the water out of her hair. “Please tell me Tora didn’t get out again.”

Kakashi only smiles. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

“Kill him.” Madara says, and Naruto is inclined to agree.

“I hate this cat.” Sakura seethes. Tora hisses and scratches her arms ferociously enough that Sasuke might be inclined to believe she was a summon had he not been familiar with cat summons. "I think he's determined to make my life, specifically, horrible."

Naruto nods enthusiastically, scratching at the cuts scabbing over on his hands. “D-ranks are a waste of time. Why can’t we do something useful? Not just backyard chores.”

Yesterday, Kakashi made them do weeding. _Weeding._ Kakashi, a jonin, had really told the three of them, graduated Shinobi, that their afternoon task was to rip dandelions out of someone’s garden. Being a genin was like being the butt of some kind of cosmic joke.

“Here.” He opens his arms, and Sakura gratefully deposits him into his arms. He holds the scruff of his neck until he goes slack. 

“What?” Naruto leans over his shoulder. Tora’s eyes narrow and Sasuke shifts away. “How’d you do that?”

“I grew up with cats.”

“Oh yeah.” Sakura says, ambling back towards the meeting point. “I was reading up on that - because apparently Kakashi-sensei is famous for his dog summons, isn’t that cool? - and I thought I read that the Uchiha clan had a pact with cat summons, didn’t they? Sasuke, do you have any summons?”

He shifts Tora in his arms, frowning. “Technically no.”

“Technically?”

“It’s… a union. The clan as a whole would exchange resources for their protection. I’ve… fulfilled that requisite, so they could be. I haven’t… asked that of them, though.”

Hashirama perks up. “Sasuke, why didn’t you mention that to me? Summons are an invaluable resource, and offer companionship as well! Almost all great Shinobi have them. I think it would be great if you were to propose a union with them!”

Sasuke doesn’t tell him that he hasn’t really seen many of the cat summons wandering around the compound, some still grieving the loss of their partners, or unwilling to return to a place so haunted by memory. 

“That’s so cool!” Sakura says, easily steering the conversation away from that depressing little bit. “I can’t believe we didn’t learn about summons in the Academy. That just seems… so important, right?”

Sasuke shrugs. “They don’t teach about chakra control, either.”

Hashirama hums. “It seems like an oversight in the curriculum. We proposed the academy to foster intellectual growth, and chakra can be utilized in nonviolent ways - like healing, for one!”

Sasuke wants to ask him if that was something taught when he was Hokage, but refrains.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Sakura calls, waving her hand. “We found him!”

“Great.” Naruto grumbles. “Now we can be done with this.”

They aren’t, in fact, done, and Kakashi makes them wade through an ice cold river to gather cattails for a client for some unfathomable reason. Naruto gets so frustrated he throws his basket, which the current then drags downstream, and he has to then chase it down. 

“That’s the second time I’ve been in a river today.” Sakura grumbles, dripping onto the sidewalk. The two of them don’t look much better.

“Great job today.” Kakashi claps his hands together in a pointedly condescending manner. “I think we’re making a considerable amount of progress-”

“Kakashi-sensei, please stop giving us D-rank missions, I can’t do this anymore!” Naruto yells. “We’ve proved ourselves! Can we please do something a little more challenging? Please please _please?”_

Kakashi arches a silver brow. “Oh? Do you really think you’re ready?”

Itachi had already made ANBU by this age. If anything, Sasuke is falling behind.

“Yes.” The three of them say in unison. 

Kakashi makes a noncommittal noise. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

“This isn’t the way you usually walk home.” Hashirama says. “Where are we going?”

“To see the summons.” 

“Are you considering it?” Hashirama asks, lightening with all the enthusiastic happiness of a puppy. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine him in any position of power at all. He’s too… nice. “Getting a summon? I think it would be great for you.”

“Mm.” He picks at the kunai swinging on his hip. “My Mom had cat summons - she had a leopard summon. I’m pretty sure Anko has a pact with the tigers too.”

When they get to Nekobaa’s home, Hashirama pauses. “Do you want me to wait outside? If I can?”

Sasuke looks at him hard, and then sighs. “You can come in.”

Hashirama can say with some certainty that he isn’t as well versed in summons as his brother was (his brother who he shudders to think about at this moment considering some of the things he’s learned from Sasuke’s experiences), but he’s fairly sure whatever arrangement the Uchiha had with the cat summons is decidedly unorthodox. 

“There’s no formal contract.” The old woman - Nekobaa? - explains, exhaling smoke into the tavern. Her little granddaughter buzzes around the room like a hummingbird. Some of the cats draped lazily across stacked crates watch Sasuke shift on his knees.

A leopard, bigger than what would occur in the wild, he’s pretty sure, because wow, that thing is the size of a _tiger, stretches out its claws close to the little girls head,_ that _cannot_ be safe-

“The cats are… less bound than a traditional summon, unless by choice. That was the case for your Mother. Shiori.” Nekobaa calls. The leopard sits, tail curling. “She wanted to stay close after… the massacre, and mourned Mikoto’s loss. Given the nature of their partnership, Shiori would like to offer her service.”

Sasuke grins in a way that Hashirama _knows_ means trouble. That's the exact same smile he got when he taught him how to walk up trees, and it's the exact same smile that has since given him several heart attacks. “I accept.”

The next morning, Kakashi makes a point to be early-

Well, early for him anyways, which was about two hours earlier than he usually deigned to show up, which was still an hour late, which Sakura reminded him upon his presence. He’s gotten used to the… unusual proclivities of his team, especially considering Naruto and Sasuke’s… circumstances and Sakura’s… outstanding personality… but he certainly wasn’t expecting the giant leopard sunning itself on the rocks by the river and Sasuke’s smug grin from his brooding spot on the bridge. 

“Oh.” He cranes his neck to look at her. “I see you found a friend.”

“Her name is Shiori.” Sasuke says, the little shit. Where he found a leopard - where he got the summon for something like that - is beyond him. “Her contract is passed down in my family.”

_I don't get paid enough for this._

“Ah.” Kakashi says, like this isn’t strange at all. He doesn’t know much about contracts, aside from his Dog one, so who’s he to say what is and isn’t weird for contracts? Maybe she simply decided to show up for practice today. “Is there any particular reason she’s joining us this fine morning?”

Sasuke bears his teeth in a smile, smug little shit. He can’t wait to make them run ANBU drills. “She’s fulfilling a promise to my mother.”

Kakashi hums. Mikoto Uchiha’s summon, then, back to protect her son. Where did he find her? He has no idea, and he’s almost too scared to ask. Children, he’s come to understand, especially his, are peculiar creatures that he’s simply not equipped to understand. Really, the Hokage must be letting the smoke get to his head if he thought Kakashi was a suitable teacher.

Naruto grumbles. “How come he gets a summon? Kakashi-sensei, I want a summon! Where’d he even get that scroll?”

Right, the brats are waiting for him.

“Well.” He claps his hands together. “I have good news! Your sensei negotiated a C-rank mission for you!” 

That snaps Naruto out of his weird… whatever that was, and he immediately jumps to his feet. “You did? What is it? Kakashi-sensei you’re the best tell us what it is! Are we leaving the village? Escorting a prince? Fighting bandits?”

Sakura elbows him in the side. “He’d tell us if you’d shut up for a second-”

“Now it’s nothing flashy like that.” Kakashi holds his hands up. “It’s just your run of the mill courier mission. It was hard enough to convince the Sandaime to give us a mission at all, so we settled on an easy one. All we have to do is escort a bridge builder to his hometown and protect him from bandits on the way.”

Sakura perks up. “We get to leave the village?”

Naruto pumps a fist in the air. “Yes! Leaving the village!”

Sasuke leans back on his heels. “Where are we going?”

Kakashi wishes he could remember that kind of earnest excitement. God, he feels old. 

“The Land of Waves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! I have officially survived the first semester, if only barely. 
> 
> I wanted to give Sasuke cat summons because canon slept on them. You might also recognize Shiori from my other fic, I am simply too lazy to come up with more names so she'll be playing her role here
> 
> Land of Waves coming up!!
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> What is this, you ask? Amazing question.
> 
> Hashirama was not prepared for the little nightmare that is Sasuke. Madara is less than amused by this situation. 
> 
> This chapter is probably a little shorter than following chapters will be. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In which, only his eyes can see.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572372) by [RandomlySane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomlySane/pseuds/RandomlySane)




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